Busy day at Cathryn and Brian's

 The pod was delivered yesterday afternoon, so we started unloading it yesterday. We got over half of it emptied yesterday. This morning, we got busy and finished it off.

 As soon as the pod was finished up, we started with building Cathryn's chicken tractors. Jim and Brian had picked up the supplies last weekend, so we emptied the trailer off and got started.

 We're making two of them and had the bottom framework finished up when we took a break for lunch.

 It took longer to get the back walls and braces in. Everything was figured out as we were going, and there is still one door left for Jim and Brian to build tomorrow.

Our raised vegetable garden has sprouted in spite of the snow last week and the week before.

a new pair

One of Lisa's contacts had a few bottle calves that they didn't have time to take care of, so we got two of them. The one on the left is a steer calf for future beef. The one on the right is a freemartin female, most likely for resale down the road. They will join Rocky and the others in the pasture a bit later, after they are weaned. They are both less than a week old.

Maple stumps removed

 I started the removal of the two maple stumps in the front yard this morning. The one closest to the driveway came out the easiest, which was unexpected.

 This one took a lot more work, even though it was the smaller stump.

 Maybe it was because it was also shorter, giving me less leverage to pull on it.

 With a hand winch and a truck for an anchor, it didn't really have a chance. I got it pulled out.

I raked the loose dirt back into the holes from both of the stumps. I want to let the root ball dry a little and see if I can get more of the dirt to come off before I haul them to the burn pile.

New bearings for the truck

 Yesterday while I was out with the truck, I heard a scraping sound coming from under the front of the truck. It sounded like a branch got caught up, but there was nothing under it when I looked. So, this morning, I pulled the rotors and bearings off to look there. I found a piece of metal inside the dust cap on the passenger side. The bearings were worn, too.

 So I went to the auto parts store and got 2 new sets, one for each front wheel. Here, the new inner bearing is installed along with the seal.

And the race is put in for the outer bearing, ready for the rest to be packed and put in. I found a bad lower ball joint while I was doing it, so it will have to go into the shop for that. I don't have the tools I would need to replace that.

Back to an older plan

 We have been drier for the last several days. This allowed the pasture to dry out some, enough to be able to use the 4 wheeler to put the hay out. Much quicker and easier that way!

We started this morning with a dusting of snow that made it a bit slicker than yesterday, but still not anywhere near as bad as it was last time.